The Day of the Locust: Id is Accomplished

The earth has become small, and on it hops the last man, who makes everything small. His race is as ineradicable as the flea; the last man lives longest.... One has one's little pleasure for the day and one's little pleasure for the night: but one has a regard for health. --Nietzsche

Let's at least congratulate MephistO for a job well done. For those capable of reading the signs of the times, it is no exaggeration to say that yesterday was one of the darkest days in the history of the nation, and therefore the world. For make no mistake: the hostile forces intent on destroying the United States as we know it have won a huge victory. Irrespective of your politics, you must acknowledge that we are not the same country today that we were yesterday morning. But our Founders would no doubt weep over this latest assault on their dream and vision of an empire of liberty, and today the cosmos itself groans a little more audibly in its travail.

As Mark Steyn writes, "it's hard to overestimate the magnitude of what the Democrats have accomplished.... the governmentalization of health care will accelerate, private insurers will no longer be free to be 'insurers' in any meaningful sense of that term (ie, evaluators of risk), and once that's clear we'll be on the fast track to Obama's desired destination of single payer as a fait accompli....

"It's a huge transformative event in Americans' view of themselves and of the role of government. You can say, oh, well, the polls show most people opposed to it, but, if that mattered, the Dems wouldn't be doing what they're doing. Their bet is that it can't be undone, and that over time, as I've been saying for years now, governmentalized health care not only changes the relationship of the citizen to the state but the very character of the people. As I wrote in NR recently, there's plenty of evidence to support that from Britain, Canada and elsewhere.

"More prosaically, it's also unaffordable. That's why one of the first things that middle-rank powers abandon once they go down this road is a global military capability. If you take the view that the US is an imperialist aggressor, congratulations: You can cease worrying. But, if you think that America has been the ultimate guarantor of the post-war global order, it's less cheery. Five years from now, just as in Canada and Europe two generations ago, we'll be getting used to announcements of defense cuts to prop up the unsustainable costs of big government at home. And, as the superpower retrenches, America's enemies will be quick to scent opportunity.

"Longer wait times, fewer doctors, more bureaucracy, massive IRS expansion, explosive debt, the end of the Pax Americana, and global Armageddon. Must try to look on the bright side..."

Even PowerLine -- not given to bombast or hype, or to spiritual concerns for that matter -- agrees: "This is a dark day in American history; one of the darkest." But it is important to remember that the darkness is still potential, not close to being fully realized. For example, Dunkirk was one of the darkest episodes in the history of the West. And yet, in another way, it was the beginning of our response to the evil that threatened us all.

Or, to take a more recent example, the September 11, 2001 Islamist attacks; the threat had always been there, but people finally woke up to it on that day. Often, evil's greatest triumph can be the same moment it starts to be turned back. But it will never be vanquished in this cosmic cycle. Rather, it can only be controlled, like a chronic illness.

Indeed, you could even think of it as a disease process. The greatest triumph for my type I diabetes was July 3, 2004, when I found out about it. That morning, my fasting blood sugar was 238. It's been in complete control since. But it's only in control because I know it's there every day, trying to kill me.

So too is the left here every day, trying to destroy (of course, they would say "rescue") the country we love, with values antithetical to ours. Just as we cannot understand the motivations of the Islamists, it is difficult for a normal person to comprehend the diabolical tenacity, endurance, and ferocity with which Obama, Pelosi, and Reid rammed through their legislative crime.

The energy is literally superhuman; or, to be precise, infrahuman. What, do you really think that that botoxed and blinking cypher is able to cow grown men just with her charm and powers of persuasion? No. These people are literally under the spell of the adversary. Using only his human powers, Harry Reid couldn't persuade you to purchase a mobile home in Pahrump.

Why is this such a hinge of cosmic history? First, because the United States really is a shining city on a hill, the beacon of liberty, the last best hope of mankind, the guiding example and exception for the rest of the world. But there have always been forces that want to reduce us to the status of any other crappy little country. It is only a republic if we can keep it. As de Tocqueville observed -- and this is not a principle that escaped the Founders, who were well aware of the dangers of democracy -- "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

As we know, every time the state does something for you, it does something to you. And once it does everything for us, it will be able to do anything to us. Our life -- and therefore our death -- will be in its icy grip.

The nation has a pre-existing spiritual illness. We call it the Left. But now the left has free and universal access to its own treatment, which will always be more of the same. As Doctor Zero writes, by its very nature, "No government program is a solution to anything." I would qualify that, and say that every government program is a solution to the problem of how the left can deny our liberty and usurp more power over our lives. Don't you feel better just knowing that 18,000 new IRS agents and dozens of federal agencies now have you in their hearts?

Why did Obama ram through a steaming pile of legislation that appears to seal the doom of his party? Because he realizes that what they have lost in terms of free and productive citizens they have more than made up for in serfs and wards (which is why amnesty for illegal Democrats is next, to assure a fresh crop of dependent voters). From now until November and beyond, the usual rabble of slaves and losers, the immature and irresponsible, will be hearing how much the Massa' has done for them.

Ace of Spades linked to the following quote, which may be unverified but nonetheless true: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."

Christ's last words on the cross are It is accomplished. What was accomplished? Well, for starters, a bridge between man and God, time and eternity, the union of the divine and human nature, the terrestrial and celestial. But Alas, the time is coming when man will no longer give birth to a star.

This is a good day for the left, for truly, they can offer up their own version of Id is accomplished. For this is the union of man with his lower nature, everything small, petty, selfish, frightened, envious, and hateful of liberty. For him, mediocrity is the highest standard, beyond which is both inconceivable and forbidden, for knowing of it might damage the self-regard of the mediocrities. It is a triumph of Man the Insect, who hops around his flat little world in the inglorious Last Days.

Alas, the time of the most despicable man is coming, he that is no longer able to despise himself. Behold, I show you the last man.... --Nietzsche

Yes, but perhaps we should remember another quip spake by Fred -- that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.